<p>^ ^ My S, who has a friend who attends SJC in Santa Fe, has suggested to me that the school tends to attract more than its share of right-wing reactionaries. I don’t know if this is really true or not. Even if it is, the trends probably change from year to year. What I really want to emphasize is that, to make a Great Books program work well, the quality of the student body is especially important (because discussion is such an important part of the program). </p>
<p>Ideology is not the only thing that could derail a Great Books discussion. Conversation can suffer if too many students are shy, lazy and unprepared, struggling too much with the language, egotistical, or distracted. The admission process is the first step in managing the discussion quality, but it can work well only if they get a critical mass of strong applicants. Then the tutors (“Dons”) have to do their work. If good mentors are working well with good, motivated students, you should see significant improvement in the quality of discussion by the second year of the program. This is something I recommend applicants try to observe in visits to first year and more advanced classes. Ask students about the quality of discussion in and out of class. Ask them how they’ve changed after a year or more at SJC.</p>
<p>I’m not saying you should avoid this school if every seminar doesn’t flow like one of Plato’s dialogs. However, I do think there is some extra work and risk involved in making a Great Books program work well. Maybe this is one reason it has not been more widely adopted. On the other hand, if the alternative is 200-student lecture classes, I’d accept the risk.</p>